Alice Vickery

Alice Vickery
Photograph of Vickery given by Rosika Schwimmer to the New York Public Library
Born	1844 Devon, England
Died	12 January 1929(1929-01-12) (aged 84) Brighton, England
Cause of death	Pneumonia
Nationality	British
Alma mater	London School of Medicine for Women
Occupation	Physician
Known for	Civil rights activism
Movement	Malthusian League
Partner(s)	Charles Robert Drysdale
Children	Charles Vickery Drysdale (1874) George Vickery Drysdale (1881)

Alice Vickery (also known as A. Vickery Drysdale and A. Drysdale Vickery; 1844 – 12 January 1929) was an English physician, campaigner for women's rights, and the first British woman to qualify as a chemist and pharmacist. She and her life partner, Charles Robert Drysdale, also a physician, actively supported a number of causes, including free love, birth control, and destigmatisation of illegitimacy.

Vickery was born in Devon in 1844 to a piano maker and organ builder. By 1861, she had moved to South London. Vickery began her medical career at the Ladies' Medical College in 1869. There she met the lecturer Charles Robert Drysdale and started a relationship with him. They never married, as they both agreed with his brother George (also a neo-Malthusian physician) that marriage was "legal prostitution". The society, however, generally presumed that the pair were married; had their contemporaries known that they were in a free union, their careers likely would have suffered. Vickery sometimes added Drysdale's name to her own, referring to herself both as "Dr. Vickery Drysdale" and as "Dr. Drysdale Vickery".

In 1873, Vickery obtained a midwife's degree from the Obstetrical Society. On 18 June the same year, she passed the Royal Pharmaceutical Society's exam and became the first qualified female chemist and druggist. Afterward, Vickers went to study medicine at the University of Paris, as women were not allowed to attend any British medical school. There she gave birth to her first child, Charles Vickery Drysdale. The UK Medical Act 1876 allowed women to obtain medical degrees, and Vickery returned to England in 1877. In 1880, she became one of five women who qualified as physicians in the kingdom, obtaining her degree from the London School of Medicine for Women, and started practising medicine. In August 1881 her second son, George Vickery Drysdale was born.